I actually like the concept of the tax much more than the alternatives. It accepts that fair use includes a certain amount of copying and sharing, while at the same time reimbursing the recording industry. So it could be a win-win situation (if you accept that the artist/recording companies do have a right to make money of their product). It could be a kind of music flatrate for everyone. Of course this ceases to work once the companies get greedy and start stating song x was copied y times with song x would have sold y times and therefore they should get y times the retail store price of the cd.

it accepts that fair use includes a certain amount of copying and sharing, while at the same time reimbursing the recording industry.

Fair use does involve copying and sharing, but since the use is 'fair', there is absolutely no reason that the recording industry should be receive any money. As I understand it, the tax really only covers personal backups and mixtapes. That is not within the realm of what copyright should be allowed to dictate.

if you accept that the artist/recording companies do have a right to make money of their product

That's a very strange notion. "To make money" is not something you can really have an explicit right to do. Copyright gives authors a specific opportunity to make money that a market without it would not offer. And I do not accept that even having that is a right of an author. Instead, it is (in theory) a means to an end of enriching the public.

In France, we have the tax, the long terms, the three strike law. Soon, they'll have more power than the government itself.

And where will that "power" come from? The government which will maintain the arrangements as long as the tribute/bribes continue to be paid. I remain amazed that people think a greedy attitude and a business plan that isn't too shitty somehow magically translates into genuine power over others.

The three strikes law actually doesn't involve the judiciary system at all, except in a completely automated way. No judge or any other human being is being told anything. The music producers are entirely all-powerful to cut the internet to any french citizen.

I agree with you, it's just bells and whistles since they can't abuse it too much, but still! There was a time where their main business was to produce music!

And all that to try to go against human nature. This will cease at some point, and 200 years f

You don't even get that: Even if you have some legal protection for fair use that doesn't involve having to pay your life savings in legal fees to defend it, you still will likely run into DRM which makes it technologically impossible to exercise fair use - and breaking the DRM is itsself a crime in most countries now.

Fair use does involve copying and sharing, but since the use is 'fair', there is absolutely no reason that the recording industry should be receive any money. As I understand it, the tax really only covers personal backups and mixtapes. That is not within the realm of what copyright should be allowed to dictate.

Yes, but the music industry is anything but fair and has shown time and time again that they are willing to bring out the lawyers and drag shit like this out in court for years at a massive expense just as a giant "fuck you". The media tax is bullshit, but it's bullshit meant to appease them and prevent even worse bullshit. Canada accedes to them in a fashion... and now the fuckers want to double dip!

Copyright is designed to give authors a limited period to profit from their creation, after which it belongs to the public domain. It is ridiculous that someone can write a song consisting of three or four chords (which most songs are) or create a cartoon of a mouse and generate an income for a lifetime. Society has the right, even the duty to take ownership of the cultural expressions that define it.

Copyright is designed to give authors a limited period to profit from their creation, after which it belongs to the public domain. It is ridiculous that someone can write a song consisting of three or four chords (which most songs are) or create a cartoon of a mouse and generate an income for a lifetime. Society has the right, even the duty to take ownership of the cultural expressions that define it.

Yes, but most of the popular works being copied are recent and would still be covered by copyright even in your much shorter term version.

The fact is that both sides of this argument has people that are full of crap. On one side are the producers organisations like the MPAA and such who are just lobbying for laws that would enable them to make more money. On the other side though are a large number of people who want to watch the latest movie or listen to what ever crap is in the charts but do not want to p

If a theatre or a TV station wants to keep a good business relationship with the studio, they won't make unauthorized copies of it. The studios would probably be negotiating on the chain level anyway, and it would be unwise to give or sell a copy to your competitor.

On the other side though are a large number of people who want to watch the latest movie or listen to what ever crap is in the charts but do not want to pay the amount the person who owns the copyright wants to charge.

These people are a decided minority; most people will pay if you let them and they can afford it. Lots of movies are unavailable outside a certain geographical region, and if anyone outside that region wants to see it, their only recourse is to download from TPB.

These people are a decided minority; most people will pay if you let them and they can afford it

That was also my point. You pick the price of something based on how much your target market can afford to pay. I can afford to pay an amount that excludes a large number of people from being able to afford it.

Now you might say that you should always pick a price according to the poorest being able to afford it but that is not how capitalism works. This is why the argument against copyright should really be an argument against unregulated capitalism.

Authors (and musicians, and whoever else falls under copyright these days) have no right to make money off their products. They have an opportunity to do so, an opportunity that is denied anyone who does not hold the copyright to the piece in question.

There is no right to make money. There is only opportunity, and with copyright that opportunity is made exclusive to the copyright-holder.

Within the US tradition, labor alone cannot create copyright, so bringing labor into the debate shows that you are ignorant of the institution, or are referring to a non-US philosophical tradition, virtually all of which are totally irrational.

Now, what the author has the right to do is to control the initial publication of a work. They have such control by virtue of exercising control over something physical, such as a computer on which they type up a novel. After that, they have no control of what ha

So, in your philosophy, authors have no rights to the fruits of their own, individual labor?

That was the situation for centuries, and copyright was not introduced because of some moral imperative -- in England (whose laws served as the basis for American and Canadian laws), copyrights were introduced to improve the public's access to written works.

If you think there is a moral argument for allowing authors to continue to profit from their work decades after it was done, I would like to hear it. If I produce a hammer, will I receive payment for the use of that hammer decades after I produced

That was the situation for centuries, and copyright was not introduced because of some moral imperative -- in England (whose laws served as the basis for American and Canadian laws), copyrights were introduced to improve the public's access to written works.

Wrong. Copyright originated as a tool of censorship [wikipedia.org]. When the censorship expired, the same measures were repackaged and reintroduced (sans government oversight of book content) as the copyright we know today under heavy lobbying of publishers who most profited from the monopoly warranted by government oversight. Comparison to copyrightless 19th century Germany shows that copyright did the exact opposite [spiegel.de] of improving public's access to written works.

So, in your philosophy, authors have no rights to the fruits of their own, individual labor?

Leading betterunixthanunix to riposte:

If you think there is a moral argument for allowing authors to continue to profit from their work decades after it was done, I would like to hear it. If I produce a hammer, will I receive payment for the use of that hammer decades after I produced it? Let's turn things around -- what makes authors so special?

Way to conflate apples and oranges. A hammer is a physical good. Unless you're talking about coming up with a complete redesign of "a hammer", as a product, it has NOTHING in common with works of art (excepting physical works of art that are by nature unique, such as paintings, where there is only one original, and it can be physically possessed and displayed by only one owner). People like you, who poo-poo the notion of intellectual property tend overwhelmingly

If you made your living by creating music, art, or literature, I suspect you'd look at things very differently.

Why do people say this as if it makes any difference? "If you were in situation X, you'd feel differently!"

It doesn't matter. That could be said about you, me, and everyone on the planet. It's a mere assumption that they actually would look at things differently, but it could be said about anyone (if you were in my situation, you'd look at things differently). Whether or not they would look at things differently if they were in a different situation than they are now is irrelevant. That does not make their

In any case, I personally see no reason that copyright should exist in any form. I don't care for artificial scarcity, and I wouldn't mind if less works were produced because there was no copyright.

Fair enough. If the loss to society of some unquantifiable - but undoubtedly large - number of new creative works due to the absence of the copyright protection that allows writers, musicians, and other non-physical-medium artists to profit from their works is an acceptable trade-off from your perspective, then I have no basis for argument with you. Our world-views and values are simply too different to permit meaningful dialogue between us.

The thing is, I suspect you're lying. Not to me, and not purposely, but lying nonetheless: to yourself, and out of philosophical/ideological blindness.

I can play that game, too. The thing is, I suspect you're lying. Not to me, and not purposely, but lying nonetheless: to yourself, and out of philosophical/ideological blindness.

So what if you had never had those experiences?

Then I'd be a different person and I'd be none the wiser. What works would and would not have been created without copyright is likely impossible to determine (unless you can peer into alternate realities, of course). But, again, I don't really care.

Do you begin to see what you would lose without some kind of protection for intellectual property?

No. If intellectual property never existed, then I'd never have had those things to

If you made your living by creating music, art, or literature, I suspect you'd look at things very differently

...and if you made your living making hammers, you would think that nobody but you should be allowed to make hammers, and that for every nail a particular hammer is used on you should receive a royalty payment. Except that we all know that is absurd, right? After all, a hammer is not a story!

Please, what difference does it make whether or not I am an author, musician, or artist of any kind? Copyright law affects me, it affects the society I live in, and the decisions we make about copyrights today wi

Saying, "Hey, you got your book published, so you have no right to complain if I scan a copy into PDF, Epub, or text format and upload it as a torrent," is sophistry of the most self-serving kind, and profoundly immoral.

Profoundly immoral? To scan a book and share it with the world? You have an interesting moral code. If you wanted to read books that were lost to history, I think your view would change.

Way to conflate out-of-print and orphan works with currently published material. I'm impressed with your intellectual honesty.

Wait a minute... no, I'm not.

To scan and upload a book that is no longer in publication, whose author is dead or missing, and whose nuturing and promotion has been abandoned by everyone with a claim to its copyright is one thing - and something of a special case. To do the same with a book in current publication is quite a different matter.

That's why you choose "conference papers from the 1970s" as your example,

I chose that example because:

They are relevant to the modern world

They are not nearly as easy to obtain as papers that have been posted on their authors' websites

They are still "owned" and thus I cannot just get them, scan them, and make them available to the rest of the world.

These papers are not even lost to history -- they are buried in university archives, unavailable online. It seems, however, that you have a different concept of owning a published paper than the people who hold the copyrights on

So, in your philosophy, authors have no rights to the fruits of their own, individual labor?

There are few philosophies that give authors inherent rights to a particular ordering of words and punctuation.

You maintain that they should just be humbly grateful that you deign to enjoy the products of their labor, with no obligation on your part to provide quid pro quo?

This is the way the world worked for thousands of years. Mind you, most societies included a moral obligation to compensate the author, if you enjoyed the work they authored. It was the invention of printing that changed things. Suddenly books could be replicated cheaply, and copyright was created to prevent businessmen from selling copies of books and cutting the author out the transaction. Yo

where the company that doesn't pay it's employees a living wage can generate more profit than the ones that do, yet no one has yet stepped in to protect factory workers and their "rights to the fruits of their own labour".

Personally, I'm torn on whether there needs to be any copyright at all. On the one hand getting rid of all copyright would allow publishing houses to return to the days where they take an authors work and publish it without paying him a dime. On the other other hand, maybe that would be better handled by non-disclosure contracts and standard civil law.

I can't see how copyright can be replaced with non-disclosure contracts (especially in an age when copying is cheap and easy). Lets take your example of the relationship between author and publisher:The author spends many man-hours writing a book and requires financial compensation from it so he can afford to live (the alternative is that he gets a job and only writes in his spare time, which I'm sure most people would agree would probably be detrimental to the amount of quality literary works being produced). So the author approaches a publisher and signs a contract saying they will pay him for the work. This contract may stipulate a lump sum, an amount per copy sold, or whatever, that's unimportant. The publisher produces the book, sells it, takes a cut of the profit and hands some cash on to the author. Another publisher buys the book from a high-street shop, scans it and starts printing copies themselves and selling them at a lower price. The original publisher can't shift their stock because they can't afford to sell as cheaply as the new publisher since the original publisher is bound by their contract with the author. The copying publisher has no contract with anyone, so is free to do what they like - in your "no-copyright" world, there are no laws to prevent them from doing this.

Essentially, your proposal to use NDAs in place of copyright suffers from the same flaw that prevents DRM from working - at some point you have to make the works available to end customers, and at this point someone can copy it (whether that simply be someone giving a copy to a mate, or a printer publishing 100,000 copies that undercut the original publisher).

The only way I can think of this being enforcible through normal contract law is by also requiring every consumer to also sign an NDA. The practice of requiring consumers to sign away their rights (such as software EULAs do) has the danger of licences progressively taking more and more rights (the consumer is already used to signing a contract, they probably don't read it and don't notice what rights are being revoked). There would be no room for negotiation, so if you don't like it your only option is to do without entirely.

in today's fast paced technological world maybe copyright needs to be no more than a few years after first publication.

I certainly support the idea that copyright shouldn't be as long as it currently is, but I don't think that "today's fast paced technological world" has anything to do with this. Morally, why should the author of a book receive less in a "fast paced technological world" than in years gone by? Its true that technology makes it easier for people to copy and therefore of the people reading the author's book a lower proportion will have paid him for it(*), but this is a reality of what *does* happen rather than what *should* morally happen.

(*) Note that whilst copyright infringement means a lower *proportion* will have paid, it does not necessarily imply that a lower *number* will have paid. Copyright infringement is actually quite good advertising. Anecdotally: I illegally copy music. If I like a song I tend to buy the CD, so the bands which produce music I like actually benefit from my infringement.

I'm increasingly becoming concerned that copyright must be abolished lest we put more people in prison for the crime of enjoying without paying.

I certainly don't think that copyright should be abolished. It serves a useful purpose (not least, it allows licences such as the GPL to work). However, the governments need to stop bowing to the wishes

The author spends many man-hours writing a book and requires financial compensation from it so he can afford to live (the alternative is that he gets a job and only writes in his spare time, which I'm sure most people would agree would probably be detrimental to the amount of quality literary works being produced). So the author approaches a publisher and signs a contract saying they will pay him for the work. This contract may stipulate a lump sum, an amount per copy sold, or whatever, that's unimportant.

Essentially, your proposal to use NDAs in place of copyright suffers from the same flaw that prevents DRM from working

Fair enough.

I certainly support the idea that copyright shouldn't be as long as it currently is, but I don't think that "today's fast paced technological world" has anything to do with this. Morally, why should the author of a book receive less in a "fast paced technological world" than in years gone by?

What makes you think they're receiving less? I think they're receiving more and receiving it sooner. They don't need as long to earn the same amount as they used to and, I think the earnings fall off faster they used to. Done appropriately there should be little loss of revenue, because even with a small loss on the long tail, the main body of earnings should be greater than it used to be.

However, the governments need to stop bowing to the wishes of the content industry.

Absolutely, my concern is that only way to curtail the corruption of copyright may be to abolish it compl

Absolutely, my concern is that only way to curtail the corruption of copyright may be to abolish it completely, because of that I'm not convinced that copyright remains a net good for society. The content industry is always going to try and use it's money to influence legislation to benefit themselves, but I'm not aware of any governments where there is a similarly powerful voice to advocate for the rights of the people. Of course, that may be the real issue that democratic governments need to be redesigned to have a powerful advocate to prevent public goods from being given away to lobbyists.

If you can convince the governments of the world to abolish copyright (i.e. stop listening to the media industry lobbyists) then you could equally convince them to stop bowing to the media industry's demands (i.e. stop listening to the media industry lobbyists).

IMHO the problem is much deeper than copyright or the media industry: the problem is that governments seem to be more interested in listening to big industry and their own political agendas than what the _people_ want. And also the fact that once le

So, in your philosophy, authors have no rights to the fruits of their own, individual labor? You maintain that they should just be humbly grateful that you deign to enjoy the products of their labor, with no obligation on your part to provide quid pro quo?

Even if we go for the sake of argument with the ridiculous idea of rights to the fruits of one's own labor, the argument for copyright still falls flat on its face. Because copyright doesn't secure that. What it does secure is a special status of one particular obsolete related service at the expense of all other possible ways to profit from the actual valuable labor. Why should we grant special status to some related service and burden everything else with tons of pointeless paperwork?

Of course they have rights to their ideas. They have the right to use, copy, and modify their ideas all they want. When you get to the point where you're claiming that you can modify my behavior because of an idea you had, that is over the line. My rights to my own body and property are far more fundamental than any supposed rights you claim over your ideas.

And if I actually downloaded moves, music or Tv shows I might agree. But I don't. I pay my cable company for that (music channels, movie channels).What other private companies want to tax me next? I live in British Columbia where drinking and driving laws have recently changed. You can now be fined for 0.05 of alcohol in your blood (although the legal limit is still 0.08) so this has contributed to huge decline in people dining out and enjoying a drink at pubs. How about a tax paying to pay for free ca

No wonder you guys aren't finding a happy solution if that is what you think of.

How about keeping regular public transit running during the hours that there is a large demand to recreate?

Or, perhaps you guys should do some public education on designated drivers.

Was there political threats from the pub owners, "if this law passes nobody will want to come here" training people in advance to stop coming for awhile? If so, don't worry, that effect is very temporary.

It's not a good concept at all. It's not just about being 'fair' to a loosely defined collection of many people named 'the recording industry', the incentives placed on people is also important. Copyright is about creating incentives to product copyright material which will be benificial to society as a whole. That means rewarding people who play a part in producing things that are widely valued, whether as creators, financers who take on risk, or whatever, and not rewarding those who do not. Distributed bl

Why? The collectors get 60% of the money, the attorney/agency keeping tabs for the artist get 10%, and the artist has to split up the remaining 30% with everyone involved making it -- including the tax man. All of this bullshit is about middlemen not getting a cut. You don't get to tax shared media. You can't run an agency if the art only gets sold once.

Of course this ceases to work once the companies get greedy and start stating song x was copied y times with song x would have sold y times and therefore they should get y times the retail store price of the cd.

Don't use the same variable to refer to different things.

x=name of song
y=nr of times song is copied

statement with y=100 000 and x="Jailhouse Rock":... companies get greedy and start stating "Jailhouse Rock" was copied 100 000 times, with song "Jailhouse Rock" would have sold 100 000 times and therefore they should get 100 000 times the retail store price of the cd.
Recording companies do tend to name their perceived lost profits that way. Which of course is bogus, because of the 100 000 people who did copy the song, only 1-2% (if not less) might have want

Actually it would be a levy refund, not a tax refund. Because this isn't a tax, it isn't collected for or by government. Nor does it go into government coffers. This would get expensive for the media companies very quickly. I think in my case alone, I could produce receipts for around $10k alone. I went through a lot of CD's at one time for off-site backups.

Good riddance MAFIAA, Your country will find itself increasingly isolated, because Canada will still carry on trading with other countries including Europe and Australia, and will probably set up it's own treaty to NEVER trade with your government until this retarded nonsense stops. I'm being 100% serious:P

Oh if only our current government had the balls to do this. Historically you'd be spot on.Unfortunately there's zero chance right now. Bush North, er, I mean Harper, already has us bent over with our pants down for this. He tried forcing through a DMCA style bill through both terms in minority and thankfully failed. He has no such restrictions now however and it is only a matter of time before this happens.

Harper has been reconsidering his relationship with the US lately. He finally got tired of them dithering on the Keystone pipeline and started investigating selling oil to China instead. When various US officials assured him that the pipeline would go through, he apparently told them "nah, we're looking into other options now."

The Chinese are continuing to buy a solid assets (like gold), other countries are dumping the US Dollar, the US are still spending and printing money. And yet, people still think that "Intellectual Property" is the saviour of an economy (same stupidity in the UK).

Have no sympathy for the RIAA / MPAA and the rest of these trade cartels who have REFUSED to update their business model. Actually not quite right, they've taken to suing their own "customers", who in turn are dumping their products and spending th

You don't want the TPP and you don't want the US forcing their copyright laws onto you. Here's your chance to say that you want neither.. you should holler it from the rooftops until every last corrupt politician knows it.

You don't want the TPP and you don't want the US forcing their copyright laws onto you. Here's your chance to say that you want neither.. you should holler it from the rooftops until every last corrupt politician knows it.

Excellent comment. This is exactly what we need to do.
Tell every person you meet and scream it to every person that can hear it. Write as many letters to every representative you can.
Our freedom continues to creep away from us and we need to make it known that this shit has to stop. They were elected by us and they work for us, let's remind them of that!

You don't want the TPP and you don't want the US forcing their copyright laws onto you. Here's your chance to say that you want neither.. you should holler it from the rooftops until every last corrupt politician knows it.

Excellent comment. This is exactly what we need to do.
Tell every person you meet and scream it to every person that can hear it. Write as many letters to every representative you can.
Our freedom continues to creep away from us and we need to make it known that this shit has to stop. They were elected by us and they work for us, let's remind them of that!

I totally agree, but be careful you don't ruin some long time reader's Slashdot experience while you do it.

Sounds like another FTA, those exist so that corporations can get around a countries laws. Free trade agreements are treaties, treaties supersede domestic law.

When we discussed the last "treaty" with USA, which in fact is giving them all the info about everyone and everything crossing our border (canadian), and how we become the 51th state, i asked them the reasonable question: NOW IS TIME TO COUNT. WHO THE FUCK VOTED FOR THEM?
No one dared to say anything. That's our main problem, we are a nation of kids, 2nd grade. Barely able to read and do some base math, but unable to take any responsibility for their acts (voting).

I don't know if you realized this or not, but the voice of Canadians doesn't seem to matter one iota with regards to Copyright these days... a majority of voters were stupid enough to allow the Conservative government to get a majority position in parliament, and now the Conservatives can now do whatever the heck they damn well want, even in the face of otherwise unanimous opposition from all other party members. Since the Conservatives are in the USA's hip pocket, take a wild guess which way this is goin

>You don't want the TPP and you don't want the US forcing their copyright laws onto you. Here's your chance to say that you want neither.. you should holler it from the rooftops until every last corrupt politician knows it.

But when pretty much only Michael Geist will report on this while none of the big newspapers will report it. If they do it'll be on some obscure blog deep inside the news site.

The media industries have poured so much money on our politicians we actually needed to give them swimming lessons! Not only that but the Conservative government is determined to enact every law that has not worked anywhere else. Also, if you disagree with the Government then you must be a terrorist. Things are polarized near the poles!

Unfortunately, it's too late. Last election we elected a Conservative majority. In Canadian politics, this essentially means they can pass anything they want. They've been busily demonstrating that since the election in spring.

Usually, there is still debate and a good airing of issues. A majority government can still pass anything they really want to, but they tend to listen, at least a bit, and are also thinking about the next election. If there's enough outcry, bills have been quietly let go before.

No, it is not. The members have already signed and ratified the provisions of the original treaty. Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Peru and US attend meetings but their status is that of being part of negotiations of the next treaty.

I'm not sure what's more offensive: That they're so used to ignoring the democratic process in the US they ACTUALLY think this way, that ANY government thinks ACTA/DMCA helps further scientific progress and the arts, or that Corporations can throw their weight around in the political arena without being boycotted into oblivion.

"I'm not sure what's more offensive: That they're so used to ignoring the democratic process in the US they ACTUALLY think this way, that ANY government thinks ACTA/DMCA helps further scientific progress and the arts, or that Corporations can throw their weight around in the political arena without being boycotted into oblivion. "

We're getting to the point "don't assume ignorance when the answer might involve malice instead". So for your comment above, "points 1 and 3". The lobbies used to be at least a lit

I respect Canada for placing *their* needs before that of the US unlike the New Zealand and Australian governments act of total, complete and utter capitulation.

TPP doesn't need the US and Canada should be brave enough to propose direct negotiation with Australia, New Zealand, Brunei and Singapore. When you include the United Kingdom then these four Commonwealth realms have so very much more in common than a shared and separate Head of State. Our support of democracy, human rights, the doctrine of common law, a single language and our Westminster Parliamentary tradition to entreat with our contemporises in Brunei and Singapore. Diplomats already refer to these four nations as CANZUK then by including both Brunei and Singapore we'd have a trading pact second only to the US, Japan, the EU and China (with NZ already in an FTA with China and Australia very likely soon to follow).

It's the Commonwealth unification of similar minds and morals for *our* own mutual benefit instead just American copyright holders who continue to extend their copyright period.

> I respect Canada for placing *their* needs before that of the US unlike the> New Zealand and Australian governments act of total, complete and utter> capitulation.

Whoah there... don't be too hasty with the respect.

I can assure you that Canada will be more than happy to totally, completely and utterly capitulate to the US as soon as feasible. The only reason we haven't recently is a few years of ineffectual and/or minority governments. We're back to a majority government and I'm quite confident th

Recall the days when Microsoft was "partnering" itself with just about everyone in order to get them to give up whatever it is they have that's valuable or useful for next to nothing and then Microsoft screws them over somehow after they've got it? (It's probably still going on, we just hear less about it or business has finally started to catch on..?)

Doesn't this seem eerily like what the US copyright interests are doing through the US government? Setting up partnerships and trade agreements and ultimately screwing the other parties over and/or manipulating them to do their bidding? How much longer before they start catching on? I get the feeling they are already catching on somehow...

Just what do you expect? First, concentrated interests learn through trial-and-error how to influence, control and capture their most relevant regulators and legislators. Once this is done (Sonny Bono copyright extention of 1995), they look to extend their power and influence further afield, in this case to foreign governments.

This is just business as usual and the concentrated interests can pay for it. The real problem is the dilute interests (public at large) does not individually have enough money at stake to do anything. This inertia allows the concentrated interests to prevail. The US Constitution protects against some abuses, but more active measures are necessary. A static, defensive strategy always loses in the long term.

Again, just what do you expect? Look at it -- the US Consititution almost exclusively acts to limit the powers of both leglislative and executive branches. Of course they are going to object and find loopholes and squeeze past any way they can. Weasles gonna weasle!

A bigger issue is the tremendous amounts of money spent or controlled through legislation. This gives lots of incentive to lobby. And difficulty stopping big spenders.

The courts who have always been a bit of a safeguard for minority rights

When I went to the IIPA, Web of Trust [mywot.com] went berserk and said the site has a poor reputation for "trustworthiness," "vendor reliability" and "privacy." It also scored a low score on "child safety."

Patents and copyrights must be abolished. They are just going to be the last nail in the coffin of US economy.

The Free Market solution must be used - Trade Secrets.

You want to protect your business for a while? You must not be able to use government force to protect your business model, so use trade secrets. Of-course/. crowd doesn't understand the principle behind trade secrets, so I have to spell [slashdot.org] it [slashdot.org] out [slashdot.org].

Trade secrets are much more fair business practice, it does not lock any potential competitor out off

I think Abolishment is an extremist position. Revised, certainly, so that we don't make criminals out our citizens for their "cultural" and/or economic values.

Copyrights and Patents have their place in a healthy capitalistic system. The problem we have is our capitalistic system doesn't seem so healthy anymore because IMO, business models made obsolete by advances in technology are being clung to and our political and legal landscape is unable to adapt in a meaningful way.

The problem with this is that without the exclusivity associated with patents and copyrights, you create disincentives for people to widely publish the things that they create, unless they were already willing to completely sacrifice the exclusivity that relative obscurity offers them in the first place. While I realize there may be no lack of people who are willing to do this, it's still *SUBSTANTIALLY* lower than the number of people that utilize copyright to retain their exclusivity on the right to dec

CreditCardRate+DebitCardFee+BillPayCharges+WhateverNext....AirFare+BaggageFee+MealPurchase+WhateverNext....RIAA+ASCAP+MediaFormatChange+MediaTaxes+WhateverNext....Whatever is next? Is a creative way to increase prices, profits, and maintain other charges.

CorporateWelfare+CorporateLaws+CorporateTaxes+CorporateBailout+WhateverNext... is not capitalism or democracy, but it is a totalitarian welfare state for plutocrats. IOW: FuckUS

At the end of the day, this is small potatoes for TPP. The real barrier to Canada being taken seriously in these talks is the outrageously protectionist supply management system in dairy, and the 300% tariff wall that goes with it. Since the supposidly "conservative" and "pro-trade" government is quite in favor of keeping that price gouging system in place to placate farmers in Ontario & Quebec, Canada's not going to be making much progress in TPP.

This isn't about tangable things like natural resources. This is a "foot in the door" attempt to sneak in control on non-tangables using natural resource trade as hostage. The U.S. isn't even a member of the TPP. However, if we can chump the countries involved into adding restrictive copyright agreements, that will change. That is what we are good at. ie. Passing laws that look like one thing but mean something completely different. An example is SOPA. The talk is "protect the childrenz and businesse

Why do people keep buying their crappy content? Stop buying their products and they will not have the type of power they have now to OWN governments all around the world. This crazyness has to stop. When the Internet was just starting to get popular these were the same people that were trying to find ways to kill it. I for one will not purchase,rent, or go to the movie theatre anymore to consume any of their content. When you keep consuming their products they take your money to go buy laws that work

Because the crappy content is backed up by an incredibly powerful marketing machine that tells people what they want, and the people believe it. Billions of dollars have been spend on the art and science of advertising, and it has become very refined and potent now.

The right-wing always frets about the dreaded UN wanting to control the world. But about the MAFIAA and Standard & Poors (who made money in the sub-prime pyramid scheme) being allowed to literally threaten and destabilize entire governments, they say not one harsh word.

... I, and I suppose a lot of Europeans with me, saw Canadians as less nonsense-and-hype-prone than US Americans; this goes especially for Canadian politicians as opposed to US politicians. I sincerely wish the Candadians to keep this reputation.

One might be astounded at the amount of credit the USA has lost in the western world. Both the tone of the OP and many of the comments here seem to underscore this.

If the media industry continues this shameless behaviour, there will be more an more people like me who support the complete abolition of copyrights. That's going to hit in the face the media industry, and I, for one, will be watching and laughing. I want nothing more than my scientific research results to be available to everybody. A great number of musicians and visual artists are just as nonchalant about copyrights, and our numbers are going to grow. It seems inevitable.

I think Canada should call the US's bluff on this one. I know sentiment here isn't going to allow the US to enforce SOPA style laws on Australia, and frankly, without Australia this whole TPP thing isn't going to happen.

Give it a year, and then once Australia makes the Yanks go home with their tails between their legs, Canada can join the TPP without having to yield to the American's strange notion of 'rights'.

Prime Minister Harper is determined to expand FT agreements worldwide. Last week the final touches on the FTA with the EU was finalized. They have eliminated the Canadian Wheat Board late in 2011... something that the US vigorously demanded in the original US-Canada FTA signed by George Bush Sr and PM Brian Mulroney and ratified by the two governments in 1988... and then equally vigorously demanded a second time when the Canada-US FTA was abandoned and NAFTA (adding Mexico) took it's place. He has also go

Well industry canada has already said that enough is enough. You might have heard the deal with the keystone pipeline? And people being signed up, who didn't actually sign up? And people basically clogging the system and screwing with our own sovereignty issues? Yeah. Even our government is getting tired of this, not only by foreign individuals, but by foreign countries(the US in this case).

As it stands now? Well, China is more than happy to buy our oil. And to be perfectly honest, that's fine with m

Not my post but how about no,I, and almost everyone else around 30 I know, use fag to denote effeminate manners in a male regardless of the sexual orientation. You can be gay without being a faggot and you can be a faggot without being gay. We have to stop that fucking political correctness, freedom of speech meant that I should to be able to hurt other people feelings if I feel that they deserved it and derogatives words are perfect for that. Stop being such a pansy...

I would not dare to try to says that to the Harley riders around here, they really don't give a fuck about other people freedom of speech but they do care and take affirmative action about theirs hurt feelings by capping your knees !

It's not political correctness, it's calling someone out for being a dick. Freedom of speech means that you are fully able to hurt other people's feelings without the government stopping you, it does NOT mean that you shouldn't be called out for being a fucking asshole when you do it.